Once I found out the errors contradictions and immorality contained in the Bible I left the church. Being a former minister and church pastor myself, I have little pity for the spineless minister and priests who know religion is bunk but are too frightened to leave.

(07-06-2011 09:33 PM)nontheocrat Wrote: Once I found out the errors contradictions and immorality contained in the Bible I left the church. Being a former minister and church pastor myself, I have little pity for the spineless minister and priests who know religion is bunk but are too frightened to leave.

Did you always know they were there and repressed them or did it just hit you one day?

“We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone.” Orson Welles

(07-06-2011 09:33 PM)nontheocrat Wrote: Once I found out the errors contradictions and immorality contained in the Bible I left the church. Being a former minister and church pastor myself, I have little pity for the spineless minister and priests who know religion is bunk but are too frightened to leave.

Did you always know they were there and repressed them or did it just hit you one day?

Being a Pentecostal, I did not go to seminary. For any unfamiliar with the way small Pentecostal churches work, ministers are just people who feel enthusiastic, talk a lot and "feel the call". The church votes, gives you a license and you are a minister, I got mine at age 14. I became a church pastor the same way, nominated and elected by the members of the congregation.

Being so young I hadn't read that much yet, but began seeing the biblical errors and contradictions as I studied for sermons as a pastor. I talked to other, older ministers who told me to ignore them or gave me the flimsiest apologetic answers. When I came to the point I could no longer preach a sermon in good conscience I resigned and spent two years studying intensely before I came to the conclusion that I was an atheist.

In answer to your question, I repressed some of the contradictions unknowingly because you just don't notice it when you aren't looking for it. Now I can see them all over the place. I guess you could say it hit me as I read 2 Samuel 24, where god provokes king David to take a census then somehow declares that to be a sin and kills 70,000 Israelites as a punishment it. This went against everything I believed in. I had been struggling for a while with the fact that Mark 16:18 promised that you could pray for the sick and they would recover yet I had a church full of sick old people and prayer did nothing. However 2 Samuel 24 was the clincher.